1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting gel covering seed, which convey every one gel covering seed from a hopper, investigate whether the seed of a predetermined number is contained in gel, and sort out to an accepted product and a defective product.
2. Related Art
The Japanese Patent Publication Hei.8-27237 describes a well-known conventional technique for producing gel covering seeds, i.e., seeds coated with gel, investigating whether a seed is contained in the gel or not, and whether seeds more than a predetermined number are contained in the gel, wherein the color of the seed in the gel covering seed under conveyance is detected by a collar sensor, and judge whether the ripple of the color wavelength approximates as compared with a predetermined ripple pattern.
However, in the technique, the setting of values before an inspection is difficult, since it is necessary to manage the conveyance speed of a gel covering seed strictly, to determine the color of a seed before an inspection, and to also establish the pattern of a seed. Therefore, if the color of a seed differs from the predetermined color, the gel covering seed will be judged to be defective products. Moreover, judgment of an accepted product or a defective product varies by the degree of the illumination light from the outside.
An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which can distinguish the existence of a seed easily with a cheap device, without not being influenced from surrounding illumination and not detecting the color of the seed in a gel covering seed, while establishing a conveyance form which certainly sorts out each gel covering seed to either an accepted product or a defective product.
In order to attain this object, a gel covering seed inspection apparatus comprises a feeder in which the gel covering seed is accumulated, a delivery device which successively lets out a predetermined number (in this embodiment, one) of the gel covering seed supplied thereto at a constant rate from the feeder, a transport device which conveys the gel covering seed let out by the delivery device in a single line, a discrimination device which judges acceptance or rejection of the gel covering seed on the midway of conveyance by the transport device, a defective product reject device which reject the gel covering seed judged to be a defective product, and an accepted product extractor which takes out an accepted product to an accepted product receipt box. In such composition, a predetermined number of the gel covering seed let out from the delivery device is continuously conveyed in a single line to the discrimination device. This conveyance form contributes to a certain judgment on the acceptance or rejection of a gel covering seed by the discrimination device, and to offer the gel covering seed inspection apparatus which has high inspection accuracy and inspection efficiency.
In the inspection apparatus of such the invention, the discrimination device is provided with a camera and a luminaire arranged face to face on both sides of the transport device, and inspects the seed in gel by taking the permeation reflection of the gel covering seed with the camera by the light that the luminaire emits. Thus, since the object to be detected is not the color of the seed in a gel covering seed but the shadow of the seed which appears in the permeation reflection, the uncertainty of a judgment produced by the variation in the judgment level of color is cancelable. Therefore, acceptance or rejection judgment of a gel covering seed is made to be easy and sure, and since it is not necessary to use the distinction means of color etc., the discrimination device itself can be composed cheaply.
The discrimination device carries out calculation of the area of the shadow of the seed in the gel covering seed which appears in the permeation reflection taken with this camera, and the acceptance or rejection of a gel covering seed is judged by comparing the calculated area with the predetermined area. In comparison with the conventional discrimination means based on color which requires the complicated means of detection of the color wavelength in a reflection, the present discrimination device, which merely calculates the area of the shadow of the seed that appears in a permeation reflection, can be simple and cheap. Furthermore, because the predetermined area is established so that the seed to be inspected may correspond to the size of an accepted product, it can flexibly respond to alteration of the kind of gel covering seed to be inspect and so on.
Also, in the discrimination device, the perimeter of the luminaire and of the photography range with a camera is covered with an enclosure. Thus, light, such as the illumination from the outside and daylight, does not shine into the photography range, and discrimination accuracy can be improved because the originating incorrect detection by this light is prevented.
In addition, the inside of the enclosure may be black, therefore it can prevent that the light from a luminaire, the light which entered from the outside reflect irregularly, and a white minute seed etc. is certainly detectable.
Furthermore, the discrimination device may be provided with two cameras arranged in a rectangular location, and those cameras may be arranged so that the photography direction of those cameras and the conveyance direction of a gel covering seed may intersect perpendicularly. Thus, even if the state that the seeds in gel overlap is taken with one camera, the state that the seeds do not overlap can be taken with the other camera, so the number of the seeds in gel can be detected certainly.
Furthermore, the accepted product extractor comprises a cylinder member and a rotation driver. The cylinder member is provided in an end portion thereof with an entrance port for accepted products. The cylinder member is provided in the peripheral surface thereof with an inside-and-outside penetrating slot elongated in parallel to the axial center thereof. The cylinder member is arranged in up-and-down slant so that the entrance slot turns to the upper part, and the cylinder member ejects the accepted product introduced from the entrance slot through the long hole while revolving with the rotation driver. Therefore, from the long hole of the cylinder member, the accepted product comes to be ejected in the uniform state in the direction of an axial center of the cylinder member, so that the failure by press of the gel covering seeds, which tends to be generated when a gel covering seed is unevenly distributed, can be inhibited.
These, other and further objects, features and advantages of the invention will appear more fully from the following description.